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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29052597">so you leave no trace behind (like you don't even exist)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/prestonsarchives/pseuds/prestonsarchives'>prestonsarchives</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, it's not a source of closure i don't think, look this isn't like my other fics, no closure just pain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:54:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,844</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29052597</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/prestonsarchives/pseuds/prestonsarchives</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dani's note.<br/>Dani's funeral.<br/>It was always Dani, really. Nothing anyone could do.</p><p>(“She left,”</p><p>Jamie’s breaking. There are still paragraphs that she hasn’t read, but she knows she can’t go on.</p><p>“She left me, to save me.”)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dani Clayton/Jamie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>so you leave no trace behind (like you don't even exist)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>basically this whole fic is based around 'sad beautiful tragic' by taylor swift. ignore that. here's my imagining of things if Dani had had more time to write that infamous note, and the funeral that thus commenced. big ouch, according to 300 (!!!!) people on twitter.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p><em>long handwritten note, </em> <em>deep in your pocket</em></p><p><em>words, how little they mean, </em> <em>when you're a little too late</em></p><p> </p><p>— sad beautiful tragic, ts</p>
<hr/><p><em>I used to hate going to sleep. Not because it was with you — never hated that, I promise — but because every time I went to sleep I would wake up and be one day closer to having to leave you. I used to hate going to sleep, until a morning in some shitty diner in the middle of nowhere, and you told me </em> <span class="u"> <em>one day at a time</em></span><em>, and it all just made sense. Everything. Every single thing in the entire world clicked into place, I think. And then we had a house, and a shop, and an entire life that should have stretched before us, and things just kept on making sense. I’ve never had that before. Never really understood anything, before you.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>Except then there was a night, one of the many I’ve been lucky enough to have with you, and suddenly there was a face looking back from my reflection that I recognised just enough for all of the sense that the world was making to be tipped on its side. You were the one thing that stayed upright, and you held me still, too. Not your fault I started slipping. None of this is. None of this will </em> <span class="u"><em>ever</em></span> <em> have been your fault, Jamie.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>There are just — </em> <span class="u"><em>so</em></span> <em> many memories. I’d relive them all, if I could. The way I used to love asking you questions, just so I’d have an excuse to look at you until you answered. The way you lean over me when we’re doing crosswords together and I can feel your breath on the side of my neck, and it comes close to killing me. The way your shoulder blades meet across your back like the wings of a small butterfly, in the dappled sunlight of an ending day. Can’t write everything down, because I’d be here until you woke up, and I won’t risk that. Won’t risk </em> <span class="u"> <em>you</em></span><em>.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>So relive them for me, yeah? Stay alive for me, too. </em> <span class="u"><em>Really</em></span> <em> don’t like saying that, but I want you to see it, when you wake up. That you won’t do anything stupid. I don’t think you’ve ever done anything stupid in your whole life but that’s the </em> <em><span class="u">thing</span>.</em> <em> Your whole life, and you’ve still got to go and live it. I’ll search for you, in the next one. The next life. I promise you, and I know we don’t like promises, but this is one I’m going to keep.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>Viola — she’s <span class="u">here</span>. Not here like she was before, in reflections and thoughts and memories but </em> <em>here,</em> <em> as in I’m scared that she’ll hurt you if I don’t leave now. I’d never forgive myself, if she did, if I was selfish enough to stay and let her — and I know you’ll never forgive me for leaving early, but it’s a lose-lose sort of situation. She’s taken so much of me, Jamie. So much, and you still stuck around to love all the parts of me she hasn’t yet stolen. Just — I would spend forever, tracing patterns into your skin. I’d hold you until the world ends, if I could. Jamie. Can I write that again? Jamie. I love the shape of your name. Feels like home to me.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>Like I said before, though — Viola’s taken </em> <span class="u"><em>so</em></span> <em> much of me.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I won’t let her have you. The last good thing. Jamie. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie — I’ll tell the stars about you. I love you, you know. So much that it hurts sometimes. The warmth my heart holds for you, Jamie Taylor. I’m so sorry.</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>I love you with every piece of me </em> <em><span class="u">LEFT</span>.</em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Jamie’s still thinking about the note when the vicar stops speaking. She <em>hates </em>this, the whole thing, the whole theme of religion circling the funeral she never imagined herself actually having to go to — <em>what god, </em>she wants to scream at the poor old bloke reciting some bible verse, <em>what god would do this? What all-loving, benevolent fucking god would take away the one good thing I ever had?</em> She doesn’t, though, sits quietly on her own words until Owen nudges her gently in the side.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re up,” he whispers, sentiment almost incomprehensible through the grief. She knows. She knows she’s up, knows she has to go and stand by an empty coffin and pretend like this is anything like the <em>closure </em>that funerals are supposed to bring, knows she has to look out on this audience of one and deliver the eulogy she could barely convince herself to write.</p><p> </p><p>It was the same thing every night. She’d get around to sitting at the stupid desk she used to kiss Dani senseless against, pick up the stupid pen that Dani had bought from a gift shop in Utah, press shaking hands to the same <em>stupid </em>notepad that Dani had written her own note on, all those nights ago. She’d get to that point, and all would shatter. <em>I can’t, </em>she’d sob into the paper, tears smudging what little she’d managed to write down. <em>I can’t do this, </em>over and over and over again because a eulogy meant accepting Dani’s death and accepting Dani’s death meant moving on and moving on meant <em>forgetting </em>and she <em>couldn’t, </em>she <em>couldn’t, </em>she <em>couldn’t, </em>until the paper was lit fire to and nothing else remained.</p><p> </p><p>Owen’s staring at her, now, but she barely registers it, <em>I love you with every piece of me left </em>obliterating what little composure she has to lean on.</p><p> </p><p>Jamie stands. Shakes, can’t quite take a step just yet for fear of collapsing, but it’s a start, at least. Nothing was ever supposed to be this hard. Seconds pass until the vicar clears his throat and she’s walking before she can gather herself, trembling hands clutching a note which shouldn’t mean as much as it does.</p><p> </p><p>She gets to the empty coffin, stares at it as if Dani might just <em>be </em>there, that she’d at least get to hold her lover, one last time.</p><p> </p><p>Dani’s not. Dani’s never going to be anywhere, ever again.</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes find Owen again, an almost-imperceptible head shake that screams <em>help me </em>louder that any words could — he nods, though, tries to convey all of those worlds of comfort into one action. <em>You can do this. </em>She can’t.</p><p> </p><p>She has to.</p><p> </p><p>“So this is, uh— this is it.”</p><p> </p><p>Playing off thirteen years in this act of nonchalance that neither she nor Owen — nor even the vicar, probably — believes.</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t feel real, actually. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and see her, tell her all about this wild dream I had, watch her face as she takes in all of the details I can remember. Not that,” a breath. Trembling, <em>aching, </em>but she’s started now. No stopping. “Not that I’d want to remember much of this.”</p><p> </p><p>“I keep on trying to tell myself that I’m lucky. Lucky that I got thirteen years in the first place, years rather than months, or weeks, or days. That was the thing, about Dani and I. Just — the unpredictability of it all.”</p><p> </p><p>Owen’s already tearing up in the audience — Jamie knows she can’t look at him, because she’ll break, too.</p><p> </p><p>“But I’m not lucky, am I? <em>Lucky </em>would’ve been spending the rest of my life with her, not having to wake up every single day and wonder if I’d be lying next to Dani or Viola, if she was even in the bed at all. You can’t sugarcoat losing the love of your life. Nothing about this was luck. <em>God, </em>sometimes — sometimes, and I hate it, but the thought’s there anyway — sometimes I do wonder if I’d have been better off never letting Dani into my life at all.”</p><p> </p><p>The guilt <em>eats </em>at her as she speaks, keeps talking even as she can feel every single bone in her body straining under the weight of a thousand other lives.</p><p> </p><p>“And maybe I would’ve been. Not my fault that I fell in love. Not her fault that she left me. But yeah, no. Not luck. Fortune, maybe, <em>fate, </em>if I believed in that, but how fucking <em>messed up </em>is it that I still have to get up every morning and smell her perfume and just get reminded, again and again and <em>again, </em>that she’s—”</p><p> </p><p><em>Dead doesn’t mean gone. </em>But it does. It really fucking does.</p><p> </p><p>“That she’s gone?”</p><p> </p><p>Jamie’s crying, now, talking only so that she doesn’t start weeping so hard she can’t continue.</p><p> </p><p>“Thing is, though, that gets me the most — she didn’t deserve this. Any of it. Just the same way as <em>I </em>didn’t deserve <em>her</em>, but how the fuck did someone as good as Dani get so <em>fucked over </em>by all of this? There wasn’t a selfish bone in her body. Only reason she came so Bly was so that she could make a difference for those kids, and she <em>did, </em>she <em>made the difference, </em>she saved them and they don’t even <em>remember</em> her. And every time I think about that, about how Dani sacrificed everything she had, for them — it always just loops back to <em>it should’ve been me.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>It should’ve been me. Take me. Drag me down like you did the others.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>(Dani wouldn’t.)</p><p> </p><p>“We could’ve had more time, too. She could have stayed a little longer and the only reason she didn’t was because she <em>didn’t want to hurt me</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>(Dani would <em>never.</em>)</p><p> </p><p>“She left,”</p><p> </p><p>Jamie’s breaking. There are still paragraphs that she hasn’t read, but she knows she can’t go on.</p><p> </p><p>“She left me, to save me.”</p><p> </p><p>Owen’s standing, pacing over to her not quite fast enough as she collapses; catching her, though, before she hits the floor. The vicar — steadily more agitated by all of this talk of ghosts and same-sex love — watches on with something akin to curiosity, unsure whether to get involved. Owen’s holding Jamie, though, arms around her without pressing, well aware that this is as delicate as she’ll ever be — pulling her up, guiding her back over to the pews. <em>It should’ve been me, </em>she’s still whispering, over and over, even as he tries hopelessly to quiet her down. <em>It should’ve been me</em>, instead of thinking, crying, breathing, but Dani’s <em>gone </em>and she is <em>never</em> coming home. 
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hours later, Jamie staggers back into their flat.</p><p> </p><p><em>Her </em>flat.</p><p> </p><p>There is no <em>they, </em>anymore.</p><p> </p><p>The note — crumpled, dog-eared, but a note nonetheless — is still clutched in trembling hands as she slumps against the door, drained entirely by all that today encompassed.</p><p> </p><p><em>I’ll be fine, </em>she’d promised Owen, plastering on a smile that neither of them had actually believed in. <em>Really, I’ll call you if anything happens. </em>He’d left, begrudgingly, throwing at least a dozen glances over his shoulder to check that she hadn’t just fallen to pieces, right there.</p><p> </p><p>It’s only now, locked safe in the silence of an empty flat, that she lets herself cave in. Sobs, the heaviest kind, the ones that wrack your body so hard that it <em>hurts, </em>overtake her entirely. <em>Couldn’t even finish the eulogy. Couldn’t even give her that.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>“Dani,” </em>and it’s a whisper of a whisper, hardly even a breath as the name floods the air.</p><p> </p><p>A minute passes, just her and the name which haunts her, eyes shut as if that could barricade the tears. Something, though — some hopeless part of her, the part that she thought had died with Dani — something tells her to read the eulogy. Even if it’s just in her head. Even if she barely brushes over at all, it has to count.</p><p> </p><p>A faint crumple of paper against paper as she tugs the note open, careful not to rip it entirely in two. It’s a mess, really — words amongst scribbles, so many crossings out that it’s almost illegible, a few burn marks where she’d held it to a candle and tried to turn the whole thing to ash — but, again, it’s <em>something. </em>Again, it has to count.</p><p> </p><p><em>So, </em>it reads, <em>this is it. </em>She skips a little, all the way down to where she got to at the funeral, eyes tracing the frame of <em>she left me, to save me, </em>for as long as she can bear to.</p><p> </p><p><em>It’s not fair, really. Dani, instead of me. I’ve said that already, I know, but she had so much </em> <span class="u"><em>life</em></span> <em> in her, if that makes any sense at all. Potential to live and just keep living, because the world loved her and god, did she love it back. And I just keep thinking, what if it </em> <span class="u"><em>had</em></span> <em> been me? What if I’d driven back sooner, ran faster — what if I’d listened to her, that night, and just never left at all?</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>She’d hate me, for this. For this jammed record that keeps on telling me that it’s all my fault, that I’m to blame if you reduce everything down to a question of morals. But it’s just— I can’t say she’d have been okay without me, because that would be outrageous to her and unfair to the both of us — but she wouldn’t have fallen so far into herself as I have. Dani Clayton, ever the optimist — she’d have done what she could with all that she’d lost, I think.</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>But I’m not her, unfortunately. As much of a disappointment that must be to the world. I’m not her, but that’s the bloody issue. She became so intrinsically a part of me, that in losing her, I lost </em> <em><span class="u">everything</span>.</em> <em> Everything, as in, there’s nothing left at all. Which should be easy, right? Living life as an absence of matter, as entirely numb as nothingness is supposed to be.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Keep wondering, though — why isn’t it easy? Why haven’t I just completely let myself go?</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>How can emptiness be this fucking </em> <em><span class="u">heavy</span>?</em></p><p> </p><p>A tear drips into the ink, staining the sheet as it slips down. That one had hurt to write. All of this had, really, but this especially. Truth, as raw as Jamie had known it to be.</p><p> </p><p><em>I loved her. I loved her, so much, more than I knew what to </em> <span class="u"><em>do</em></span> <em> with, so much that it felt most days as if there was absolutely nowhere to put that love at all. There was Dani, though. There was always Dani, even if I didn’t want her to have to strain under anything more than the weight of two souls where there only ever should have been one.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>So I tried to let myself go, </em> <span class="u"><em>really</em></span> <em> did, fought the memories of us by letting them devour me. The eternal question, though — how do you stop loving someone?</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Easy answer, folks.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>You don’t.</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>Not even when the memories have swallowed you entirely, when everything you look at is a reminder of everything she was, every morning is a jab in the side that says </em> <em>look, look at this bed, <span class="u">look how fucking empty it is without her.</span></em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>There’s no forgetting that.</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>So, Dani, if you’re hearing this, let it be known that you are a royal pain in the arse. Let it be known that you are the one thing my mind won’t let me forget, that your smile is pressed into my mind like stamp into wax, that every night when I see the stars, I </em> <span class="u"><em>do</em></span> <em> tell them about you, so many stories that I’m fairly sure the constellations must be tired of me now. I’m never not thinking about you.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I miss you.</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>Time doesn’t stop for anyone, though — time certainly didn’t for us — and as things stand, life’s going to go on whether or not there’s a hole in my side where you once sat. I miss you, because I promised you </em> <span class="u"> <em>so many more years</em></span><em>, and I never got to give those years to you. Let it be known that I’d hold you until the world ends, too.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Loving someone is so short, Dani.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Forgetting is so, so long.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jamie hates the eulogy, even now. Doesn’t have the language to describe anything as eloquently as Dani could — in an ideal world, something so simple as <em>I miss you </em>written eight dozen times across the page should have done. Maybe it would’ve done, if she’d put it to the test — but therein lay the issue. There’s no test run, of losing someone. Loss doesn’t <em>give </em>you a second chance.</p><p> </p><p>She lets her eyes rest on the note once more, a sketch of a moonflower hidden in one margin, <em>you me us </em>written just below. Gentle with herself — gentle as Dani would want her to be, because still, Dani hides herself in everything Jamie does — she stands. Wobbles slightly (today has sapped her of what little energy she had left to give) but she’s standing, at least.</p><p> </p><p>This isn’t goodbye.</p><p> </p><p>This isn’t closure.</p><p> </p><p>This is, however, <em>something, </em>some hollow shell of a feeling, as she pins her eulogy (crumpled, smudged, torn) next to Dani’s note (pressed, smooth, pristine).</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll find you, Dani.”</p><p> </p><p>A promise, the same one made to her in Dani’s last goodbye.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“I’ll find you, in the next life.”</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come find me on twitter at @moonflowerrss or tumblr at @prestonsarchives !!<br/>comments (as always, you know me) are very very very much appreciated.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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